Nate D’s Comments (group member since Sep 17, 2012)

Nate D’s comments from the Completists' Club group.

I'm a somewhat inadvertant near-Completist of the fiction since he was my transition out of college and into reading-for-pleasure, at a time when I knew about two authors I liked, and so read him every other book for a while.

I'm only missing his very first, Hear the Wind Sing, though I managed to track down the equally unavailable sequel, Pinball, 1973 in the vaults of my college library on a return visit.

Er, not to jump all over MJ's toes.

The only argument against him, to me, is that he's very much in the early-middle of his productive life, I'd think, so any kind of Completism will be rather premature.

Personally I'm for any and all genre writers that people think are interesting and worthwhile, really.

Paul wrote: "I think there should also be built-in acceptance of failure. People should be allowed to make a final slightly hysterical post explaining how they no longer wish to be considered as being on the ro..."

Also endorse!

Of what I can actually determine to exist as books, I'm only lacking the essays and Islanders, though I have a copy of the latter to be read shortly.

No one seems to read A God-forsaken Hole, but they really really should. Hilarious yet blackly perceptive characterizations and a grim assessment of the desperation of inaction.

Yevgeny Zamyatin (also sometimes Eugene Zamiatin) is best known for authoring We, the early dystopia and clear precedent of Brave New World and 1984, from within Communist Russia in the early 20s, where it had to be smuggled out in 1923 for publication in English before ever appearing in Russian. In fact, he'd supported the revolution, and communist ideals, having been jailed for backing the failed 1905 revolution. But a born heretic, Zamyatin declared that progress was always needed and there could be no final revolution. We, then, fore-saw the abuses of Stalinism as a clairvoyant warning of the restrictive society already clamping down heterodox thought immediately after the revolution. Forced out of work by his ideas, he petitioned Stalin for permission to leave Russia in 1931, and with aid from Gorky, was somehow successful, relocating with his wife to Paris, where he found himself still at odds with the earlier mostly-anti-revolution expats already there. Throughout, until his death in '37, he produced brilliant stories and novels in wide-ranging styles of equal daring and precision. Certainly my favorite Russian writer.

Novels/novellas:
A Provincial Tale, 1913 ('Uezdnoe', tr. Mirra Ginsburg, in The Dragon: Fifteen Stories, 1966)
A God-forsaken Hole, 1914 ('Na kulichkakh', tr. Walker Foard, 1988)
The Islanders, 1918 ('Ostrovitiane', tr. T.S. Berczynski, 1978, tr. Sophie Fuller and Julian Sacchi, in We, 1922(?) ('My')

Essential collected stories:
The Dragon, 1966 (tr. Mirra Ginsberg)

Collected Essays:
A Soviet Heretic, 1970.

Uncollected stories:
Mamai, 1921 (tr. Neil Cornwell, in Stand, 4. 1976, now on-line here).

To be developed further with any additional information I can turn up. In particular, I want to know more about his apparently-never-entirely-translated collections "Stories for Grown-Up Children" and "Impious Tales" if such exist.

There are a couple significant additional letters, I think, but to me they just sort of scream: "not enough readers understood me so I'm putting out some extra hints"

(not that I didn't have to have the asopect I'm mentioning pointed out to me -- but this was also my intro to metafiction so I wasn't really on the alert.)

I think Mike has read it? I may at some point once I bash through Hogg and Mad Men.

Dhalgren is so amazing.

Since you can set your own criteria, as thread starter, why not just claim this thread as for novels and essays completism or some such?

Why not? That actually could be my favorite, though I've not really dug so far into her older work.

So, Wolf Solent is the starting point for neophytes? Though sometimes I enjoy beginning in really esoteric points, too, so are any of the late fantasies essential?

Sweet, thanks for the listing, Geoff.

MJ wrote: "ATTENTION! Those who started author threads: could you add a complete (preferably chronological by year, separated by fiction/essay etc) list of all the authors' works to your first posts? Thanks."

I endorse this SO HARD. This is what will make this group more than a diversion and more of a vital resource. (And I was going to do it for anything I start anyway).

Still, he's definitely someone I see myself edging that way on as well.

Haven't you also read the entirety of B.S. Johnson's work, by the way? That seems like something I might eventually attempt, even though I know you were less thrilled with the late essays.

Likewise, thanks for constructing this this thing and allowing us into it, MJ.

As far as completism goes, I find my general obsessive is often defeated by my equal tendency towards esoteric authors unlikely to have their full oeuvres translated into languages I can understand (ie: Tadeusz Konwicki, Roland Topor, Agota Kristof.) Currently attempting to broaden my reach a little by brushing up on neglected French skills.

As it stands, I've read all available Leonora Carrington, though I suspect there's still untranslated French work out there, and approaching Anna Kavan completism, overlooking for now the more drastically out-of-print of her earlier books written as "Helen Ferguson" and whatever unpublished esoterica is currently living at the University of Tulsa.

Have you both read Slow Learner, then? I think I'm down to just that and Vineland, but then, Pynchon makes things a little easier by taking eons to produce new material.

I demand an itemized list to back up your claim. (and to alert me to anything weird I've been overlooking.)

Yes, but are you taking into account how many additional books he'll be adding to your pile in those same 16 years?